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Magnetic

In my Dior Mystic Metallics preview, I held back the most hypnotizing Dior polish yet: Dior Vernis Mystic Magnetics! As far as I know, this is the first magnetic polish in Dior’s beautiful lineup of polishes, and it does not disappoint!

The shade is titled 802, and is described as a shadowy blue lacquer. I would describe it as more of a metallic steel-blue-green shade that leans very grey, depending on the light, and is truly mesmerizing. Even more so when magnetized! You can see the bottle shot below, far left, with the magnet in front of the polish:

I used two coats over base coat for the photos below. Like most magnetic polishes, the directions are to apply the first coat, let dry, and apply the second coat one nail at a time and magnetize. To get the best effect, immediately after applying the second coat, hold the magnet very close to the nail for up to two min to get the strongest effect. Word of warning: I did get too close and even though the magnet did not touch my nail, the magnet pulled up the polish to the magnet… I had to start again.

I love the effect – it’s subtle and classic. And the colour once magnetized is even dreamier!

And of course, a macro shot so you can see the slight holographic effect:

Is this not gorgeous? It screams fall to me, and I absolutely cannot wait to wear it again!

Dior Vernis Mystic Magnetics is Limited Edition and will not be available at Sephora, so run to your nearest Dior counter before it sells out! For more information, head to Dior.com!

~xo

(Products were provided for consideration and review. All opinions are my own.)

Can you believe 2012 is almost over? This year was a big one for me… I started my new job, recently moved to our new home, started blogging and taking my polish and beauty obsession to a whole new level, and along with that, I met some amazing people in this community.

It’s been a little quiet on my blog lately, mainly due to my big move just before Christmas… I thought I would catch up, not only on a blog post or two, but also share some of my top polishes of the year (with links to the original posts).

My most popular post, even garnering a shout-out from Suzi Weiss-Fishman, OPI’s Creative Director, on her twitter chat recently (!!), was the Monet jelly sandwich. This was created using OPI’s Funny Bunny with Shimmer Polish Linna, and it turned into one of my favourite manicures.

From the same collection, here is Nubar Rouge, another gorgeous pink I fell in love with:

Up next, another of my most popular posts comes courtesy of OPI’s first foray into magnetics, from the OPI Skyfall Collection to commemorate 50 years of Bond films: OPI Magnetic Lacquer Is that Silva? I just love the holo magnetic!

Who doesn’t love a sparkly linear holographic polish? The ladies at Glitter Gal have made holos their business, and let me tell you, Glitter Gal Wisteria does not disappoint!! I loved the subtlety of this light hue…

Next is a sparkly vampy black jelly courtesy of Aphrodite Lacquers, Nebula. Though I love vamps, I don’t always wear straight black polishes, unless, of course, they have a little something like Nebula does. Filled with aqua and silver glitters, Nebula has depth and sparkle:

And last but not least, the one that started my love affair with Aphrodite Lacquers, Grapetini! I think it’s fair to say that AL is one of my favourite indies, having created a number of polishes that I wear again and again… and Grapetini, with its purple squishiness, was part of my very first AL order that was not meant to be. It has the unfortunate distinction of being my first polish to arrive smashed to pieces lol.

And that, dear readers, is my first top… 16 list! It was meant to be a top-12 but there were simply too many that I adore. There are many more that I love and wanted to share, but in the spirit of keeping this a somewhat shortish blog post, not all the beauties could be included… Perhaps I will share another top-12 list soon.

Hope you enjoyed this post as much as I have enjoyed selecting my favourites. May the New Year bring you and your loved ones much joy and happiness, success and love.

~xo

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OPI is bringing it lately. In honour of the 50th anniversary of James Bond, and the November release of the latest Bond flick, Skyfall, OPI has released a 12-shade collection in two parts (I reviewed some of the Seductive shades here, with a few Dangerous shades yet to come). They also released a special edition 18k Gold Top Coat, “The Man with the Golden Gun,” and have now released their very first magnetic lacquers as part of a 3-piece limited edition Skyfall collection. Last but not least, they have also added four new, Skyfall-inspired limited-edition designs to their Pure Lacquer Nail App collection, fittingly called Nice Tux, Positively Shocking, Floating Dragon and Shaken Not Stirred.

Phew!! That is a lot of lacquers in one collection, and I have to say, they have delivered!

Today I bring you the 3 new magnetic polishes, and I was really excited to try these!! Not only is this OPI’s first foray into magnetic polish, it is also my very first experience with magnetics. I immediately fell in love with these colours: gunmetal gray, gold shimmer and rich burgundy. Each comes with its own unique, specially-designed magnetizer to create striped, diamond, or wavy patterns, respectively. What blew me away were the two holographic polishes out of the three!

Morning, Moneypenny is a rich burgundy speckled with holographic particles that shimmer in a rainbow colour on your nails.

This was the very first magnetic polish I tried, and I have to admit, it took me some time to get it right. I redid half my nails at some point! I first tried to apply this the way I normally apply polish: base coat, one coat on all nails, come back for a 2nd round of polish. I realized that did not work well on every nail as the polish needed to be quite wet to be magnetized. I also have a couple of more curved nails, and I found the magnet did not magnetize these nails evenly – the curved area did not get enough “exposure” to the magnet for a strong design. I tried to get a little bit closer to the magnet, resulting in my touching the magnet with my wet nail, so I had to redo those…. I also found if the polish was too wet or thick, the magnet could pull it up resulting in a bump on the nail.

The best method for me was applying base coat all around, then doing one nail at a time. One coat of polish over the base coat… wait a minute or so for it to dry a little, then add a slightly generous second coat and immediately magnetize. I also held my finger inside the magnetizer (which sits on a surface with the magnet on top) for about 10 seconds rather than the recommended 5 seconds to ensure a clearer design. And allow plenty of dry time before top-coating!! (More on that below.)

Enough talk – here is the final result!

I love the depth that the magnet creates! Oh, you should also know that I used the striped magnet rather than the wavy one (which came with Moneypenny) for this one… Two notes about this mani: I used my favourite top coat, China Glaze’s Fast Forward, which I have now learned is not nail-art-friendly. It smudged the design even though I allowed a lot of drying time, hence the weak pattern above. Ensure you do not use this top coat with these magnetic polishes. 🙂 Moneypenny also stained my nails slightly orange after wearing it for a few days, but the staining did start to subside after a few polish changes.

You can really see the holographic effect in the flash picture below!

Next up is the other holographic polish, Is That Silva?, a stunning gunmetal gray, and my favourite of the bunch!

It was a breeze to work with this one, perhaps because by now I had some experience with magnetics… 😉

I used the “one-nail-at-a-time” method with this one, and I did not have to redo any nails!

In the above picture, I decided to skip the top coat so that you could see the vivid pattern. You can see I used the striped magnet (that actually comes with Silva) on this again. The slightly grainy appearance on my nails is from what I assume to be the tiny iron pieces in these polishes – they completely smooth over with top coat.

For the picture below, I applied a top coat just on my pinky so that you could see the slightly faded appearance on that nail, as compared to without top coat:

But no smudging!! I used A England’s The Shield top coat. And do you see that amazing holo in the flash picture above?? Love! And the design developed the clearest on Silva, with a beautiful light vs dark gray pattern. I will be wearing this polish again and again, with and without the magnetizing!

And finally, we have Bond…James Bond, a gorgeous, bronzy gold colour.

I found this polish to appear a lot brighter in the bottle than it was on the nail. Once applied, it looked much more bronze, almost antique. This one came with the diamond pattern magnet, which I did not find to give as stark of an effect as the other two:

It is such a gorgeous muted shade.

And I adore the glimmer that you can see in certain light, like in the above flash photo.

All three of these polishes would also look amazing without being magnetized – especially the two holographic ones that stole my heart!

This limited-edition collection is now available everywhere that OPI is sold, including Nail Polish Canada, and comes in a pack with its respective magnet.